Oct 22 Klaus Enrique: “The Reaping”

Mr. Enrique may be lucky in that his style and idea comes from so lofty a place. Was it Picasso who said that 'good artists copy, great artists steal'? If that is so, then Enrique is a great artist; the idea came from 16th century Italian portrait painter named Giuseppe Arcimboldo who, tired of painting the same faces of bored aristocrats, decided to make portraits of people using vegetables or fruit.

What Mr. Enrique has done is taken that idea a step into the 21st century, the portraits are no longer seated in the style of the classical masters, other than the two true to form Arcimboldo copies, instead they face forward in the 21st century style, or a little to the left, reserved for those of high importance. The only pice which neither aesthetically or morally appealed to me was the Gandhi made of broken eggs, mostly because it seemed cartoonish compared to the other more fine portraits. The rest of the images were good.

Mr. Enrique's process is to first stage the picture by arranging fruit, flower petals or grains, and in the case of Darth Vader butterflies (very Damien Hirst); then to capture the moment before it is lost. A gust of wind moving the petals, the immediacy of the camera is what makes him not only a fine sculptor in a manner, but a fine photographer.

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